The "A Tough Decision to Make" Story

It was an ordinary day. Heading home from Ephrata, PA after a stop to pick up name plates for some photos I'm making. After passing the Oregon Dairy store on RT 272S, I hit a stretch of road which is 1.75 miles long and where the speed limit is 45 MPH, but where there have been three fatal accidents in the past few years. Two of the three involved motorists turning into the Mission Hills neighborhood. A few years ago, a carload of Manheim Township HS students were heading north on this stretch, RT 272N, turned left into the neighborhood, and were struck by a speeding motorcyclist who had his daughter on the cycle with him. The accident resulted in multiple deaths. The motorcyclist who died had been drinking before the accident happened. Shortly thereafter, at the intersection of St. Thomas Road and RT 272, a roadside collection of memorabilia had grown to cover the entire corner where the accident took place. Today, almost 10 years later, it stills bears a stone monument and wooden cross at the same spot. The owners of the property at that corner evidently allowed this monument to be placed on their property in memory of the boys who died. Would you allow this on your property? Tough decision to make! What happens when you are ready to sell your property and no one is interested because you have a roadside memorial at the corner of it? Seems to be a big controversy about what to do if asked to allow a memorial on your property. And they’re not limited to roads and highways. On city street corners, candles, photos and stuffed animals can be found paying tribute to a victim of violence. Why do people feel a need to build them? Would I feel the same need if someone in my family met an unwanted death? Tough decision to make! If a monument is placed on public property, it could be illegal if it includes a Christian cross or other religious symbols. Violates the constitution. When you are driving and you see a roadside memorial, does it make you slow down or are you more safety minded because of it? In New Mexico, they have made it a crime to remove or vandalize a homemade shrine. Some people are offended by them and regard them as an unwanted intrusion into their personal space. In 1991, Andy Bechtold, a junior baseball player at Manheim Township High School and my daughter's boyfriend at the time, died shortly after visiting her at our home in an automobile accident. His family could have chosen to erect a roadside memorial, but instead had a memorial placed on the scoreboard at the baseball field. To me that is a much more fitting tribute to a fine young man than plastic flowers, or even a stone marker, along some road. I know he died along some road, but is his spirit still at that spot? You can believe or think what you want about roadside memorials, monuments, graves, or whatever you want to call them, but they will never go away. And, they won't affect you until ....... Going to be a tough decision to make,isn't it? It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.